Her face lit up through her tears, which now cut rivulets through the white powder on her pudgy cheeks. ‘He’ll do it, John, I’ll see to that. When I’ve finished talking to him,’ she went on grimly, ‘he’ll do anything that’s asked of him!’
She stood up abruptly, returning to the old Matilda he knew, with a look on her face that spoke of a hard time ahead for her brother. ‘Lucille!’ she yelled, lifting her face towards the narrow slit of the solar high above their heads. ‘Lucille, we’re going at once.’
As he followed her to the door, de Wolfe sighed. The veil that had been lifted to give a moment’s glimpse of her inner self had fallen again, and the wife he knew and suffered was back.
At the street door, John asked his wife to return home, but she refused. ‘Not yet, John, it is too soon. I need to see this crisis through and set my mind in order first. I detest all men at the moment, you and my brother. I will stay with my cousin for the time being.’
She sailed off with the smirking French maid in tow and de Wolfe hoped for her sake that her new-found confidence about her brother’s fate was not too optimistic. Personally, he was unconcerned as to whether or not de Revelle swung from a gibbet, which was no less than he deserved – but somehow he wished no further misery for his wife, whose brightest star had just been dislodged from the heavens.
He watched them vanish round the corner, heads bent against the icy wind that blew a mixture of rain and sleet down the narrow passageway that joined the high street to the Cathedral Close. When he went back inside, he saw Mary peering from the passageway to the yard. ‘Has the mistress gone?’ she asked. ‘I kept out the way. The look on her face when she arrived would have turned an angel to stone.’
De Wolfe smiled wryly. ‘For the first time in years I felt sorry for the woman.’ He sighed. ‘Now get me my dinner, girl!’ he boomed, and with a return of his usual spirits, he gave Mary a kiss and a smack on the bottom.
The cathedral bells continued to mark the hours, with the coroner becoming more and more impatient for Gwyn’s return. He ate his meal, typical winter food of salt fish and boiled pork, but it was after the second hour of the afternoon before hoofs and neighing outside told of the arrival of horses at the farrier’s stable opposite.
Soon the hall was bustling with large men, all wet, hungry and thirsty. Mary bustled about with ale and wine, and brought in all the food she could lay her hands on. The arrivals were Gwyn, Lord Guy Ferrars, his son Hugh, Reginald de Courcy, Walter Ralegh and Alan de Furnellis, the last two being landowners from the south of the county. De Wolfe’s woodman, Simon, was dispatched into the Close and soon returned with the Archdeacon.
A groom from the farrier’s ran all the way to Rougemont and came back with the constable, as Ralph Morin was a direct appointee of the King.
After they had all warmed up and refreshed themselves, they sat around the refectory table for a council-of-war. First of all de Wolfe related all that had gone on, especially the devious plot to prevent him going to the Chief Justiciar with news of the embryo rebellion. Mindful of Matilda and his promise, he played down the involvement of the sheriff and made it sound as if Richard de Revelle had been manoeuvred and manipulated by the arch-plotters into a situation from which he could not escape. From the looks on some of the listeners’ faces, it was plain that they had doubts on this score, but other matters were more urgent.
‘How ready to move are these traitors?’ snapped Guy Ferrars, the most powerful of the barons present. He was a large-boned mass of a man with a florid face half hidden by a brown moustache and beard. Though he was utterly loyal to King Richard, he was an arrogant, intolerant man, a Norman to his fingertips, who should have been born more than a century before so that he could have carved out his own empire as a Marcher lord. His son was cast in the same mould, though he was too fond of drink and women ever to be the man his father was.
‘They have a force of mercenaries – and seem to have employed many outlaws as foot-soldiers,’ replied John. ‘There is no way of telling how many men they have, without spying on their camps, but at least we have their commander in gaol, this Jocelin de Braose.’
‘We need to nip this in the bud as soon as possible,’ said de Courcy, another powerful figure in Devon. Older than the others, he was completely bald, with his hair on his face, where a narrow grey rim of beard was joined by a wispy moustache. He and Ferrars had fallen out badly over the recent death of de Courcy’s daughter, who had been going to marry Hugh Ferrars, but to the coroner’s relief, they seemed now to be the best of friends.
‘We must catch the leaders unawares, if possible,’ grunted Ferrars. ‘Use the same dirty tricks on them as they tried on you, de Wolfe. We don’t need a pitched battle between armies, if we can help it.’
There were murmurs of agreement from Ralegh and Alan de Furnellis who, after years without strife in the region, had no wish to disrupt their comfortable life if they could avoid it.
This was the opening the coroner was seeking. ‘I think we have the opportunity to do that. Richard de Revelle, as we know from his past history, is at least well known to them, and until the news of today gets widely abroad he is still persona grata with them.’
‘How does that help?’ objected the elder Ferrars.
‘We need Henry de la Pomeroy and Henride Nonant out of their castles. They have set this plan in motion to silence me. It has failed miserably, but they don’t yet know that. If the sheriff sends them a message demanding an urgent meeting about the coroner, at some point well away from their refuges, then we may ambush them and cut the serpents off at the head.’
They discussed this for some time, and found no fault with it, as long as it could be pulled off.
‘But is it legal?’ queried Ralegh, a black-browed man rather like a watered-down version of John de Wolfe.
‘To hell with it being legal!’ shouted the short-tempered Hugh Ferrars. ‘Is treason legal? These swine should be pulled apart by horses – hanging’s too good for them.’
‘Well, let’s catch them first,’ cut in the mellow voice of reason, coming from Alan de Furnellis, a younger manorial lord from near Brixham. ‘It should be put into action tonight. Once they learn that this de Braose is in prison, they’ll not trust the sheriff, who was supposed to protect the plotters. You know how fast bad news travels around these parts.’
De Courcy looked over at John de Alencon. ‘How does the Church stand in this, Archdeacon? The Bishop is well known not to be impartial in this affair.’
‘I think he has dreams of Canterbury if Prince John succeeds. Certainly Hubert Walter would not last five minutes under a new king and would be lucky to keep his head on his shoulders. But at this stage, I doubt Henry Marshal wishes to cross the Rubicon of treason – not until there is a clear signal that he would be on the winning side.’
After further discussion they decided that they would immediately approach the sheriff and put an ultimatum to him: help us or else!
With the prospect of armed conflict the next day, the visitors decided to stay in Exeter overnight. Ferrars and de Courcy had houses in the city, and while the other two went off to find quarters in a tavern, the remainder set off for Rougemont and a show-down with Richard de Revelle.